charging light blinking, no display

hi, another day another problem. My multimeter is without battery so I am unable to test continuity or battery charge. This phone belongs to a friend and he's asked me to try and fix it..this is not a phone I am selling which is why I ask (usually I will do my own research but this time I haven't found a solution)(and no this is not the complete piece of junk I did buy today!)

His story is the phone suddenly turned off. When I connect to mains charger you get a solid red light for about 30 seconds then the red light blinks four times, then off for 4 seconds. No display, no warmth on the battery. I have checked the pins for the dock and the battery, visually look ok. Taken the phone apart, the tab for warranty was still intact, no idea where water sticker may be but no signs of corrosion.

What I've tried so far... put on charger, battery removed for a few minutes then replaced (got that idea from a forum) plug in to mac, hold power button for very long time (also from forum)

I've put the bb disc in the mac, but think it's a windows thing.. am I wrong? either way the mac didn't see the phone via USB but the red light is now constantly on.

The forum mention that a completely dead battery needs to be "trickle charged" back to life..

no.1 buy new battery..... any other pearls of wisdom? As you know I fix iphone 3G's so this is not my thing. Any help or advice greatly appreciated.x

Cheers OT! Crackberry site has a great how to guide! Friend wanted me to not reinstall software because he wants info from phone... Bahaha he should've backed up. Are these things a windows only thing?? May have to use neighbors pc (a first.. Me borrowing their equipment. :-) )

6 Answers

After having looked through the crackberry forums and others, it looks like your 3G's :-) Most common cause for this error; the battery needing to be replaced. Some people suggest to leave the battery out for a couple of hours (or even overnight), and then to retry it. Of course there is also the possibility of a upgrade error, since the phone has no visible hardware damage. Here is a decent explanation how to recover a dead BB, and this talks about the battery management. Hope this helps. Good Luck

hey OT, just got round to the new battery (still waiting on battery for multimeter..very lazy girl that I am) no change. Got out the old windows xp laptop, installed driver..RIM recognised in USB but will not download a single thing. Says it's up to date.. Somehow I think I'm doing this all wrong. I don't have internet on laptop, only wireless is on the mac and this silly phone is windows only I think. So..off to the inlaws to use theirs and see what happens. get coffee and cake if nothing else! The only thing here is that the screen is completely black, the nuked berry in your link has WSOD..i don't think this is a screen problem, do you?there are plenty of other people posting this blinking light scenario.

I am wondering if the soft reset might work with the new battery Alt – Right Shift Button – Del and see if that does anything. You apparently can use a Mac for the update. Check on this site May save you a trip;-) and see if this video is helpful. Its for the Win OS but may be you can adapt it for your Mac

Fixed! Used your last link and did a bit of surfing/study.. Found mac os. Strangely I could download from cd that came with bb but nothing opened on desktop for mac. Guess os mismatch?? Anyhow all better so thankyou x

The same suddenly happened to me last night. While I am traveling now. I have taken out my battery, let it stand over nite, and retry again, but the problem is not solved. Appreciate if you can help, I am traveling now and only have the charger with me. I need all the data's and contacts during my travel in order to communicate

you should check your battery under a power supply with 3.7 volt be very careful about connecting the + and (-), use one cable on the + the second cable rest on the (-) leftover battery contact (on the board). if the battery work just fine then you should move up the battery contact and if that doesn't work then replace them